With debate about the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility being built at the Savannah River Site heating up, CB&I AREVA MOX Services President David Del Vecchio urged employees to remain focused and promised that the facility would be built in a message Friday obtained by NS&D Monitor. “I have faith that the MOX Project will be completed and I have faith in each and every one of you as you perform your duties competently and safely,” Del Vecchio wrote. “I see the hard work you do every day and I see your commitment to this project. The MFFF will be built, it will be built well, and will be built safely.” The latest controversy surrounding the MOX project involves a report released last week by The Aerospace Corporation that estimates the total lifecycle cost of the project at a whopping $47 billion.
Del Vecchio suggested that a different standard was used for the estimated cost of other projects. He said the $47 billion estimate, which was based on a $500 million a year funding profile, included cost to build MOX, but also pit disassembly and conversion operations, the cost of building and running the Waste Solidification Building, reactor modifications, H Canyon operations, security and transportation, Los Alamos National Laboratory work on plutonium disposition, and other work over a 15- to 20-year period. “DOE and NNSA use a different standard for other projects, currently built or being built,” he wrote. “In other words, we have been singled out for this enormous life cycle cost standard and cost figure … while other projects only have the cost to construct the facility itself as its total cost.”